UNIVERSITY OF THE MIDDLE AGES: THE CONTEXT OF INTELLECTUAL AND CULTURAL TRADITIONS. PART I

Abstract

The cultural renaissance of the XII century – «Romanesque Renaissance» – is designated in the article as an epoch which intellectual movements ensured the flourishing of the culture of Latin patristics, inherited from Rome in the Middle Ages. It is shown that the XII century paved the way for Aristotelianism, which a century later became a profound shock to the traditions of education for the emerging universities. The vectors of the phenomenon called the great doctrinal synthesis of the XIII century are indicated. The symbolic view of the world, which previously rejected «physics», has lost its positions, and a huge role in these processes, as shown in the article, was played by Aristotle's concept of nature and the universities that emerged during this period. The role of Christianity reviving since the Х century in the emergence of the first universities is outlined, the role played in the realization of the spiritual and secular ambitions of the church and the formation of the first medieval universities, the center of knowledge for the Christian world, cathedral and monastic schools is revealed. The era from the IX to the XIV century is characterized as the era of the combined Arab-Romance effort to reconcile religion and philosophy and complete the classical picture of the world, which was reflected in the university education of the Middle Ages.

Keywords

• romanesque renaissance
• latin patristics
• aristotelianism
• great doctrinal synthesis
• conception of nature
• cathedral schools
• trivium
• quadrivium
• studium generale
• platonism
• neoplatonism
• dominicans
• franciscans
• averroism
• philosophy of experience
• scholasticism
• christianized aristotelianism
• intellectual theocracy